It is “virtually certain” that 2023 will be the warmest in 125,000 years, European Union scientists said after data showed last month was the world’s warmest October in that period, reports RTE.
The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said last month’s temperature record from 2019 to October was significantly broken.
“The record was broken by 0.4 degrees Celsius, which is a huge margin,” said C3S Deputy Director Samantha Burgess, who described the October temperature anomaly as “very extreme”, reports RTE.
The heat is the result of continued emissions of greenhouse gases from human activity, combined with the emergence of this year’s El Niño weather phenomenon, which is warming surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
Globally, the average air temperature on the Earth’s surface in October 1850–1900 was 1.7°C higher than in the same month, which Copernicus defined as the pre-industrial period.
A record October means 2023 is “virtually certain” to be the warmest year on record, C3S said in a statement. The previous record was 2016 – another El Niño year.
Copernicus’ dataset dates back to the 1940s. “When we combine our data with the IPCC, then we can say that this is the warmest year for the last 125,000 years,” Ms Burgess said, reports RTE.
Long-term data from the UN IPCC Climate Panel includes readings from sources such as ice cores, tree rings and coral beds.
The only other time before October in which the temperature record was broken to such a large extent was September 2023.
“September really, really surprised us. So after last month, it’s hard to determine whether we’re in a new climate state. But now records keep tumbling and they’re surprising me less than they did a month ago,” Burgess said, reports RTE.
“We must not let the devastating floods, wildfires, storms, and heatwaves seen this year become the new normal,” said Piers Forster, climate scientist at University of Leeds, reports RTE.
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